Markouts expire: managing the 811 clock across every open job
Every underground contractor knows the first rule: call 811 before you dig. The rule that catches busy companies is the second one: the marks do not last forever.
Every state sets its own validity window for locate tickets, and the clock usually starts when the ticket is issued, not when your machine arrives. Add a weather delay, a customer reschedule, and a crew pulled to an emergency, and it is genuinely easy to end up over an open trench with paint that no longer legally protects you.
Why stale tickets are a company-level risk
Digging on an expired markout is not a paperwork foul. If a line gets hit, the expired ticket usually means the liability lands on you, regardless of whether the marks were still visible. That can mean repair costs, downtime claims from the utility, fines, and in the worst cases somebody hurt. One stale ticket can cost more than a year of profit on that job.
The fix is not working slower. It is knowing, at a glance, which tickets cover which jobs and when each one dies.
The habits that keep the clock visible
The ticket lives on the job, not in a notebook. The ticket number, the date the marks went down, and the expiration belong wherever the crew looks at the job itself. If the foreman has to call the office to know whether Maple Street is still covered, the system is the problem.
Expirations get a warning, not a discovery. Someone, or something, should flag every ticket that dies within the next few days while there is still time to refresh it. Refreshing a ticket costs a phone call. Discovering it expired costs a stopped crew, or worse.
Reschedules trigger a ticket check. The most common way tickets go stale is not negligence, it is a job that slid two weeks. Make "is the markout still good?" part of every reschedule, the same way you re-confirm the customer.
Photograph the marks when they are fresh. Paint fades and topsoil gets moved. A dated photo of the original marks protects you when the question is whether the locator actually marked the line that got hit.
Know your own state's window
Validity windows, refresh rules, and even what counts as the start of work vary by state, and they change. Your state's One Call center publishes the current rules, and it is worth a yearly read even for veterans. The universal parts are the habits above: ticket on the job, expiration visible, warning before it dies, photo of the marks.
TrackOver keeps the ticket number, markout date, and expiration on the job record with a warning before a ticket goes stale, because we have eaten that morning-of scramble ourselves. However you track it, track it where the crew can see it.